SSB: A new diversity selection combining scheme and its test-bed implementation

SSB (Simplified Switched Beam) was originally motivated by a simple beamforming technique. It is expected to increase the performance of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) by associating with the dedicated MAC protocol [12]. However, we further find that it is a variation of the antenna diversity scheme, which is called GSC in [6] and H-S/MRC in [11]. SSB only requires one RF front-end and a simple additional processing unit, hence it has apparent advantage in terms of size, power, expense and complexity. Its 2.4 GHz test-bed for reception has been implemented recently. Intensive measurements show that SSB can help to suppress the effect of fading, enhance the SNR and finally result in the reduced BER.